Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

Haven't found anything on income distribution of voters between the two candidates yet.

College Degrees are still a more important criteria than income. Odd that. Especially as degrees are not as much a gurantee of income as it used to be.

Realignment, possible. But in which way? One or both parties? Have independents moved closer to the Democratic Party ideological wise or was their vote just against Trump? Could the Democrats regain some of the folks they lost to the independent column. We'll have to wait and see.

Down ballot, the Democrats didn't do very good or as well as most expected. Down ballot most folks decided to stick with who they had with a slight Republican gain.

I think Biden and the Democrats will do just fine if they go with what popular, what most Americans want and stay away from the rest of their agenda that is unpopular and a majority of Americans don't want. But will the House Democrats let Biden do that? If not, the GOP could regain control of the house in 2022.

The AP has called Pennsylvania and Nevada for Biden, 290-214 with Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska still outstanding. Congratulation to old Joe Biden.

The interesting thing with a Republican Senate, is that Biden will not be able to pass any progressive legislation. Just return the nation to normalcy, with the policies and executive orders of the Obama administration. This is actually the political balance of power (Democratic President and divided Congress) that has historically had maximum economic booms. We also have several vaccines coming soon, so the pandemic should be broken.

Pretty much the worst situation for progressives who want immediate change. But obviously what the voters wanted, or they would have given Biden the Senate. Best example is Maine, where Collins won but the state went for Biden hard. The upshot is that Biden won't be able to do anything that promotes a backlash: In a way, not very good for Republicans in 2022. If Biden did get a Democratic Senate in 2022, then maybe he could pass some progressive legislation but I doubt it could get through Congress with such slim majorities.

The senate is still up for grabs, although favored to end up in GOP hands. It's 49-48 GOP at the moment with North Carolina still out. NC has 2% of the votes to be counted with Tillis leading Cunningham by approximately 100,000 votes. I don't see Cunningham overcoming Tillis's lead. Trump leads by around 70,000 votes. What this tells me is you had 30,000 folks who voted for R Tillis in the senate, but for Biden for president.

The two Georgia seats will have a runoff on 5 Jan 2021. So there is still hope for the Democrats to have a 50-50 tie in which VP Harris would be the tie breaker. The Democrats counted on picking up Iowa, Maine and North Carolina which seems they failed in all of them.

The Democrats will still control the house, where they will lose 6-10 seats. Highly unusual for a party to lose house seats when their candidate won the presidency popular vote, it'll be Biden by 5 million votes, perhaps more. The last time a party's candidate won the presidency and lost house seats was in the election of 1884.

Georgia is another state where a lot of folks voted for Biden, but for R Purdue in the senate race. Biden is leading Trump by approximately 7,000 votes, Purdue beat Ossoff by 93,000 votes. But failed to attain the 50% plus one vote to avoid a runoff, he ended up with 49.8% to Ossoff's 47.8%.

Definitely a mixed bag results. The Republicans also picked up one Governorship along with two state legislatures. The GOP under Trump in 2016 also lost seats in the house, but Trump also lost the popular vote.

Lots of people voted to get Trump out but aren't very happy with the Democrats would be my guess. Biden was bad for the down ticket races. No enthusiasm for a moldy sock puppet but it's what the party insisted voters had to use against Trump.

Anyway, another pyrrhic victory for Centrist Dems when you consider the congressional districting about to go on. On the other hand, interfering in the primary by party leadership, they might be o.k. with this outcome as well. They can accommodate themselves to the donors without having to do anything for the voters.

If the Dem party was interested in what the voters wanted they wouldn't have rigged the last two of their primaries.

Now onward to turn the Senate.

Actually, maybe Democrats can flip the Senate in the runoff election in January: Don't forget, Biden WON in Georgia. If they could get everybody who voted for Biden to turn in a mail ballot electing the two Democrats, that would do it. Republicans might be demoralized by then and have the low turnout associated with special elections. Especially if they have to go vote in person because of some left-over Trumpyness.

Yeah, but that doesn't give you the true scope of things. Republican Purdue beat Democrat Ossoff by 90,000 vote with the Libertarian candidate getting 115,000. Purdue received 49.8% of the vote, Ossoff 48.9 to the Libertarian 2.3%.

Biden won Georgia by 5,000 votes, so there was a lot of ticket splitting. Voting for Biden, then voting Republican for the senate. But come 5 Jan, turnout will be the key. Usually the Libertarian vote comes home to roost with the Republicans in runoff elections if history is any guide.

So which ever party gets their voters to the polls in Jan will decide these two races. I'll make no predictions. The Democrats may be celebrating Biden's victory and fail to show up or the Republicans may be peeved at Trump, way down in the dumps and fail to show up. These two races are pure tossups in my book.

Exactly: It's all about turn-out, and turn-out is a product of the ground game and money. It's just one state, so Democrats could possibly flood the place with door knockers who get people to fill in and mail their absentee ballots. And maybe spend a lot on internet, TV, radio, and billboard ads. They could also send in people to register a lot of folks in advance of that.